la douleur exquise
by mirajens
Summary: The last night is the hardest. —miraxus


**la douleur exquise**  
by _mirajens_

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His lips burn against the column of her throat and its a desperate sight how his large hands tear the shift that restricts the spreading of her legs, how her smaller hands tangle into the shock of his hair. The sounds out of her is something caught between a sob and a moan and good God, he just wants to quiet her and he wants both of them to stop thinking about tomorrow.

If only it was that easy.

Its not so he settles for this: one last bang before the sun rises and she dons her wedding gown and marries the cold king from the west. One more night for them to spend their passions because surely there will be no more when she wears another man's ring on her finger.

* * *

She remembers first seeing him and thinking she wants him.

She's only a fresh fourteen to his eighteen and she sees him training her brother, stripped to a loincloth and wielding a shiv against Elfman's Kukri. He's beautiful, a sight that inspires new found lust in her belly until Lisanna takes her limp hand and drags her to the stables. As she feeds the horses snacks, her mind never leaves him and she wonders how his arms would feel around her.

It turns out, she wouldn't have to wait long to find out.

That same night when they dine in the great hall, the man they call Dragon Slayer watches her in a way that unnerves her and excites her in equal measure until her corset feels too tight and hot so she seeks reprieve in the cold air of the rose gardens. And of course he finds her. She half expected him to.

"Not hungry, my lady?" he asks when he leans on the fountain railing beside her.

"Not for the roast, no," she responds, cheeky.

He laughs which surprises her. "You're a child, Highness. A royal one and I am not even noble. Perhaps you do not know what you suggest to me and you'd blush like the virgin you are if I indulged you. I'm sure your ladies will agree that you are being inappropriate."

She is too embarrassed to tell him that one of those ladies hide in the corner. "Do indulge me for a minute. Take it as a command of a royal child." she says and before he can wonder what she means to do, she rises on tiptoes so she can press her lips against his. And when she thinks about pulling away, he slips his tongue into her mouth and his arms around her waist. She wonders if he would have stopped if she hadn't laid a hand on his chest to push him away.

"Hm." she touches a finger to the fire in her lips and watches a smirk bloom on his. "Don't hide, Dragon Slayer. I will find you again. Good night for now. Do enjoy the feast."

When she joins her lady, she hears him yell across the garden, "I don't think I'm hungry for the roast either!"

* * *

The next time they meet is when she gives him her favor at a joust.

Many already bear small trinkets from her: Elfman wears her pearl circlet on his forearm, Erza parades with the princess' silk belt wrapped around her fauld and Natsu roars with pride when Mira ties a handkerchief around his bicep.

"Do I get the same honor as the fool Natsu?" She doesn't hear him approach, armor and all so she yelps when she swivels from petting her brother's large warhorse to come face to face with the man haunting her every thought lately. "I cannot help but feel like I deserve one before he does."

There is a violent blush on her cheeks when she tries to remove the veil but his bare hands reach for the comb and lace with a gentleness that she doesn't expect from him. As he untangles the comb's teeth from her hair, she can smell the musk of a warrior through his breastplate where her face is scant centimeters away. "Will you bear my favor, Dragon Slayer?"

Laxus watches her lips move even as her hands weave the fabric through his lance's handle. "I would take anything you give me, my lady."

Later when he unseats his opponent, he urges his horse to the King's stand and he might have his helmet on but she knows he's staring at her when he raises his lance above his head, her white lace dancing in the wind.

* * *

They lie together a year after the kiss in the rose garden when she sneaks out of her chambers past maids and ladies and guards to meet him by the river. His Destrier rests by the bank, scrubbed clean just previously by his master still washing himself in the freezing water. Closer inspection reveals he is not naked but the wet loincloth doesn't make much of a difference. Under the moonlight, he looks like he belongs in dreams and in her case, he does.

"I heard your troop was back. Natsu told me you liked to come here after a journey." Her casual dress is easier to move in so she raises her skirts and dips her legs into the river, pretending she doesn't see how he looks at her pale feet.

"Have you taken to sneaking out of bed while I was gone, my lady? As your father's man it is my duty to tell him his daughter is gallivanting unchaperoned with odd men late at night." A casual air surrounds him and he is thankful the cold flow of river water from waist down cools his blood a little.

"You've been gone very long," Three months not seeing him had been a small death. "Many things have changed." Mirajane bites her lip when he treads against the current so he can stand between her legs.

"Don't do that," he says, thumb brushing against her lip as his face nears hers. "Didn't your mother tell you not to play with fire?"

Her eyes are glazed over and diluted when they watch that pulse beat under his jaw and fixes it to the hard gaze he pins her. "My mother told me to always go after what I want. Burns be damned."

He gives her many kisses that night. The first, barely real. Mirajane could hardly feel the ghosting of his lips over hers and she's sure she feels his eyelashes on her cheeks more, but he follows up with a more languid kiss, cold fingers gripping the back of her dress. When his hot mouth moves to her neck, everything blurs. His body cool from his dip is a pleasurable contrast against the fire that simmers under her skin so her legs wrap tight around his waist, delicious impetus. The groan that rips from his throat sounds angry but he lays her down so gently and divests her of clothing so slow (he makes sure to kiss everything he uncovers).

Dread almost fills her because all she hears about the act of love making is pain on the first time but then again, she thinks, it's all worth it when Laxus touches her like this. She reciprocates more for herself than him. She's never touched a man so intimately so she lets her small hands wander from the lines on his face, the corded muscle of his neck, the expanse of his back and the dips and planes of his torso. She can't close her eyes when he kisses her again and his hands smooth over her chest.

She continues to watch him even as his touches continue below, and God, she can't stop watching him, can't understand why all the ladies in her books close their eyes when they reach the same peak ecstasy he brings her to.

When his legs nudge hers apart and he murmurs assent onto the skin of her collar, she nods and he moves, and she supposes, that's all she can talk about that night at the risk of imploding from embarrassment.

* * *

Many people find out and it's not such a shock. Most of them do nothing to prevent it because Mirajane might be kind but she is not a meek little thing to be told off and Laxus is not someone even the brave can reprimand. Things only change when word reaches the king and rightfully furious, he sends his general away. Or at least, he tries to. His eldest daughter has quite the mouth on her when her father treats her like she's incapable of making her own decisions.

But the king, albeit abashed, always gets the final say. So one morning when Mirajane and Laxus dine together, her father summons them and announces to the couple and the advisers in the chambers that Mirajane is to marry the king of Brago, His Royal Majesty Gray Fullbuster in a fortnight.

Mirajane and Laxus leaves the king's chambers hand in hand and Laxus doesn't dare look at her even as her smaller hand trembles in his.

It feels like they are waiting for a death to happen.

They send the last days in a haze where no one really speaks, too afraid of goodbyes. So they don't give each other that chance. Sometimes Mirajane sees Laxus snap out of a reverie and he starts to open his mouth and she would shove bread or fruit into it or plain silence him with her own mouth. She thinks she's more terrified than he. For Laxus there would be life after her, as he did before her. But he is the beginning of her and, she supposes, the end of it. She will marry and bear children upon children and be queen to a people who are strangers and he will stay here and he can fall in love over and over again.

* * *

The last night is the hardest.

Laxus doesn't heed her summon until the final hour and he comes into her bedroom right when the ladies are leaving and it might be dark and his heart might be ripping apart but he sees the garments of a bride in their arms, too much white lace like the one that he still keeps by his bedside.

He pushes the heavy oak of her door open and he sees her by the sill, pale and frightened. Then accusation blooms on her face, _where were you, I needed you, I've been so alone._ But he can't tell her that he spent the whole day trying to avoid her, or the castle that holds their beginning and end and in betweens. That he's been drinking and purging the old fire whiskey Natsu and his Raijin keeps handing him with sorry expressions.

Instead he accepts her anger, the fists she beats against his chest and the barbed words she throws at him. "I know," he says, and he hopes his voice won't break. "I'm sorry. I'm scared too."

She's shivering and sobbing when she kisses him and he takes it. It's gonna be the last time.

* * *

When she wakes, it's not surprise he isn't there. The sun is a tentative thing seeping through her drapes and her ladies are even more cautious coming into the room. The bed is empty beside her and cold. She'd have wondered if any of last night was real, but she still smells him on her sheets, on her pillows, on herself. And God, she better savor this because this is the last she will have of him.

It's fine, she thinks. It's easier this way.

* * *

 **note:** My life and soul is made up of Miraxus angst. Please support the upcoming Miraxus week (details at miraxus-week dot tumblr dot com). I'm also sorry for being garbage and not writing more, or for keeping the things she left behind hanging. It's not done yet.


End file.
